Adam Stofsky is the CEO of Briefly and founder of the New Media Advocacy Project

Adam Stofsky

The Power of Story to Impact Social Change

The power of story helps us understand the world around us; Adam Stofsky and Jennifer Pitts will dive into the anatomy of good storytelling and how to leverage new media for social change.Brief: Advocates and activists think in issues, causes, struggles, and demographics. We have messages to convey, audiences to persuade and funds to raise. But, it is the power of story that helps us understand the world around us. In this session, Adam Stofsky and Jennifer Pitts will dive into the anatomy of good storytelling and how to leverage new media for social change. We will discuss practical questions - storytelling methods; best practices for telling stories in annal appeals, fundraisers, advocacy campaigns; technology and equipment; and big picture questions - like current trends in media for social change; ethics of storytelling, and more!

Adam Stofsky is the CEO of the legal information tech startup, Briefly, and founder of the New Media Advocacy Project. Adam is a graduate of Amherst College (1998) and Harvard Law School (2004). After finishing law school, he served as a law clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and then received a Skadden Fellowship to work as a litigator at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. After his fellowship, he joined the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton as a litigation associate, where he worked for two years, after which he won an Echoing Green Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurship to found N-Map.

Adam was the Executive Director of N-Map for 7 years. N-Map is one of the world’s leading media and human rights groups, with support from funders like the MacArthur Foundation and Open Society Foundations. N-Map has collaborated with dozens of human rights organizations around the world to merge media and storytelling into their advocacy. In 2014, N-Map was recognized as a technology and human rights leader when it received a “New Digital Age” award from Google Chairman Eric Schmidt. Adam is a frequent speaker at convenings on human rights and social enterpreneurship. When not doing human rights or legal work, and spends his time with his 2 year old son, and support his wife who raises sheep, cattle and pigs on a farm in the Hudson Valley of New York.